Operations Research and Homeland Security: Overview and Case Study of Pandemic Influenza

This chapter starts with a brief review of the birth of operations research (OR) in a war-focused homeland security setting. In more frequent non-war settings, homeland security requires diligent planning for and responding to low probability, high consequence (LPHC) events. Resulting decisions are described by time frame, from long-term planning decisions to minute-to-minute operational decisions. After a brief review of OR tools and techniques and of related literature, the chapter then provides details of recent OR research by the authors into a major threat to homeland security: pandemic influenza. In the context of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic flu, we examine a supply chain problem in pandemic flu response: the manufacture, delivery, and administering of flu vaccine. Using a combination of axiomatically derived OR models and data obtained from a representative sample of states of the USA, we evaluate the effectiveness of the deployment of flu vaccines in 2009. We show that, for many states, the vaccines arrived far too late to be useful. We suggest alternative vaccine allocation policies that could dramatically increase the numbers of flu infections averted. We offer practical takeaways for those whose responsibility it is to design homeland security response strategies for their own states and communities.